Participant Information (please read)
Participation
You are invited to participate in this study because you are a first-year clinical or health science student. You will be directed to the Bremer Medical Centre at UniSQ to make an appointment to see the nurse practitioner/researcher for a bulk-billed consult.
Your participation in the study is related to MMR and will involve participating in an online survey about MMR and MMR vaccination, at the beginning of the study and again at the end of the study. The survey will take approximately ten minutes of your time to complete. In addition, your permission is required to use (de-identified) data collected that is related to your MMR immunisation and vaccination history and your MMR immunity levels for analysis in the research study.
Routine processes at the Bremer Medical Centre at UniSQ involve students presenting evidence of immunity (VPD) of selected diseases to the health centre. If unable to provide evidence, a blood test is done to assess your immunity level. If immune students will be provided evidence of immunity to submit to their relevant clinical placements team. If not immune, students will be offered an MMR vaccination booster. Six weeks following the booster, a second blood test will be done to assess your immunity level.
First appointment. To determine your immunity to the MMR viruses, a blood test (approximately 5 mL of blood) will be taken and sent to a pathology laboratory (direct billing). Following testing, your blood sample will be disposed of as per routine pathology laboratory processes.
Second appointment. A return appointment will be made to allow you to receive pathology results (indicating if you are immune or not immune to MMR). If not immune, you will be offered an MMR vaccination booster. This will be documented on the VPD form. There is a small cost, if vaccines are required, and vaccines are stored at the Bremer Medical Centre at UniSQ.
Third appointment (if required). Six weeks post MMR vaccination booster/s, if required, an electronic recall will notify you that a second blood is due to determine immunity to the MMR diseases.
Your decision whether you take part, do not take part, or take part and then withdraw, will in no way impact your current or future relationship with the UniSQ, or the Bremer Medical Centre.
All data will be deidentified and you will be unable to withdraw data collected about yourself after the data has been analysed.
Expected benefits
It is expected that this project will directly benefit you by ensuring immunity and knowledge to the MMR diseases. All components of this work-based research ensure that your requirements for clinical placement are completed in the one place, from blood testing, to vaccination, and completion of the VPD form at Bremer Medical Centre at UniSQ Ipswich campus.
Risks
Participation in the survey component of this work-based research involves minimal risks apart from minor inconvenience related to time to complete the pre and post surveys.
At your first appointment, as per routine processes at the Bremer Medical Centre at UniSQ, you will be provided with a separate information sheet regarding what to expect and risks related to assessing and follow up of your immunity levels for vaccine preventable diseases, including the blood testing procedure and the MMR vaccine.
The medical centre has work guidelines in place to minimise risks, such as monitoring.
Privacy and confidentiality
All comments and responses are confidential. Please be advised that the research team will take every precaution to maintain the confidentiality of your deidentified data.
Participants deidentified data will be made available for future research purposes, for similar projects, and will be stored at UniSQ.
Expected completion of this work-based research project will result in three peer reviewed articles (or conferences). Findings will be aggregated, and no individual participant will be able to be identified. Publications will be available upon request by contacting the nurse practitioner/researcher.
Any data collected as a part of this project will be stored securely, as per University of Southern Queensland’s Research Data and Primary Materials Management Procedure.
Consent to participate
At the end of this participant information sheet, you will be directed to a consent form should you wish to participate in the study.
Clicking on the ‘Yes’ button at the end of the consent form, you will be given access to the pre vaccination survey.
On presentation to your first appointment at the Bremer Medical Centre at UniSQ, a separate patient consent form will be provided for you to complete as per routine processes.
Questions
Refer to the Research team contact details to have any questions answered or to request further information about this project.
Concerns or complaints
If you have any concerns or complaints about the ethical conduct of the project, you may contact the University of Southern Queensland, Manager of Research Integrity and Ethics on +61 7 4631 1839 or email ethics@usq.edu.au. The Manager of Research Integrity and Ethics is not connected with the research project and can address your concern in an unbiased manner.
Consent to Participate
Clicking on the ‘I consent’ button below is accepted as an indication of your consent to participate in this project. In doing so, you are indicating that you:
- Have read and understood the information regarding this project.
- Consent to collected data being used for additional future research.
- Consent to access of Australian Immunisation Records, for the benefit of this research?
- Have had any questions answered to your satisfaction.
- I understand that the results will be available in published aggregated form in an open access journal and participants can request a copy.
- Understand that if you have any additional questions, you can contact the research team.
- Agree to participate in the project.
- Understand that you can withdraw consent to participate in this research at any time.
If you have further questions about the survey, or wish to know more about our research contact: Christine Schoenfisch w0025225@umail.usq.edu.au (Principal Investigator).
Supervisor Details
Professor Sonya Osborne Associate Professor Kate Kauter
Email: sonya.osborne@usq.edu.au Email: kate.kauter@usq.edu.au
Telephone: +61 7 4631 6084 Telephone: +61 7 4631 1326
